The Thorns and the Bitter Rose
by Meep meep
Summary: It was the story of Draco Malfoy and Harry Potter, the thorns and the bitter rose.' Warning: implied slash and abuse. Draco in the war effort becomes a spy after a tortured childhood


Disclaimer: the characters aren't mine, at least at first. Anything you do not recognise is dredged up from the twisted recesses of my mind.

1. Must contain a pairing in which the people concerned are from different generations.  
2. No incest (I really think I should try to write something which no one would find objectionable).  
3. Must contain a Boggart.  
4. Must contain the words "write me a story!"  
5. Must contain the words "irksome" and "monstrosity".   
6. One of the characters must dye their hair.  
7. Must end happily (sorry Rachel).

Draco always thought that the people he should trust were the ones who let him down in the end. He had led the life he never thought even dreamed about – surely he should be happy by now? But he couldn't help but feel that something was wrong.

As far as eight year olds went, Draco was an exceptional boy. You could already see the elegant grace in his actions, the beauty he would grow to be. And he was beyond intelligent; he was above even the highest expectations of his age group.

And Draco knew what was happening was wrong, he just couldn't find out why. It made him feel wrong; made him feel dirty inside. And that wasn't right. He had trusted… he had thought… but no. Not now, and not ever again. Not ever again, he wouldn't be subjected to that.

When Draco ran that night, he thought it would all be over, that he'd never have to see this place again. He was wrong. And he didn't find out just how wrong until three years later, when he started Hogwarts.

And then, he thought, those years of horror were about to feel like a picnic. Slytherin dorms… welcome to hell.

The first time his secret almost came out wasn't that spectacular – the sorting. He had almost cried in sheer terror at the sight of that person, sitting there, looking for all the world as if there was nothing wrong with them. Someone leaned over to them, and Draco nearly shouted that they shouldn't… that they didn't know what they were really like.

It was the second time that had him worried. In the third year, his first DADA lesson of the year, they went into the staff room.

Draco knew straight away that they were doing something he should fear, something he should stay away from. As they made a line in front of the closet and out came Neville's worst fear – Severus Snape. And Draco nearly screamed. Instead, he closed his eyes, pretended he wasn't shaking inside his mind and laughed. He made fun of Neville for his fear, even though he knew that if he were to stand in front of the Boggart, the Beast, that he would be seeing the exact same thing. The man who had made his life hell. The man who abused him.

And when Draco stood on the ground in front of the Beast, he thought hard of something – anything – else that he feared. His mother and her pills, his father for not protecting him, his grandfather for allowing that man onto their grounds. The Hell Hounds that howled the first time that man… he thought of anything he could fear instead, and begged with his eyes not to be allowed to do this. But Remus Lupin never saw, or if he did, he didn't understand.

And as the Beast came towards him, Draco thought of the thing that he felt perfectly represented the man. As it drew closer, Draco closed his eyes, terrified it would show the truth, he heard the hiss that was his speech, heard the slow slither of black robes on marble floors. He opened his eyes, terrified of what lay before him.

But all he saw was a jet snake, hugely venomous with glittering black eyes that practically radiated evil. Draco was shaking, but this time it was from relief – though the class interpreted it as fear.

At fourteen, life was becoming even more of a hell than it had before – Snape was desperate not to let the secret out, making Draco do anything he thought of using the exposure of his secrets to force him into it.

Performing the most degrading acts taught Draco to detach himself from his emotions and become hard and cold to the world. His few friends wondered but never asked, nor did Draco ask them, for if they had they wouldn't be being forced into the horrifying situations that they ended up in.

As Draco became colder he became more and more like his father. Turning into the clone of what he saw as the perfect example of brutality without fear kept him safe, or at least protected his mind.

The entire Slytherin population seemed to turn into these machines, these monstrosities, almost overnight. Having been told in no uncertain terms that the rest of the world would not save them here, they began to become less human in order to cope. And not one person noticed. Perhaps it was less of a case of them not noticing but more a case of them not caring. Slytherins were evil; therefore they did not deserve to be treated like human beings – right?

And so the Slytherins became the epitome of the evil aristocracy, cold and brutal. They became exactly the type of people Voldemort wanted.

At fifteen the Slytherins were offered the only thing that could have turned them over to the Dark Side – the power to stop their abuser. The power of being accepted into a society that offered them a life without the pain, without the almost torturous reality of their daily lives. It was no surprise that they accepted.

At sixteen, Draco realised that his abuser was directly linked to Voldemort. He discovered that the abuse, the anguish, everything, had been a plan to get them to become Death Eaters. Having observed everything he could possibly observe at his lowly status within the ranks, he began to rebel.

He listed the names of every person to attend meetings. He listed the names of people who appeared at more than four consecutive meetings. He listed all their friends, all family friends. He listed people he believed to be senior members, people of the upper class DE.

And at seventeen he gave these lists to Dumbledore. He became the youngest double agent in wizarding history (barring the five year old who gave information after being threatened with teddy being taken away).

He was given his first Death Eater mission two months later – kill Professor Dumbledore. Using a network of spies, Draco managed to both plan and pull off the ultimate deceit against the Dark Lord.

He faked Dumbledore's death and convinced everyone he was truly faithful to the Dark Lord. Snape played right into his hands – activating the protection and glamour he had placed upon the old man.

Snape's own ambition had caused his nefarious plan to work, and made it work even better by dragging him away into the night.

When they hit the safe house, Snape stopped worrying long enough to force Draco onto his knees for yet another 'service'. Using this as the perfect distraction Draco killed his abuser.

Most would have been shaken by their first kill, but not Draco. He had planning this for far too long to waste time shivering and shaking in a pathetic show of fear and self-loathing – he felt too much of both those for the act of murder to make too much of a difference.

Before he turned eighteen Draco became one of Britain's most wanted. And so Draco turned into the one thing no one would suspect – a Weasley. He dyed his hair fire engine red, his blue-grey eyes changed by glamour to become a near-luminescent blue.

The scar he'd received during the fight at Hogwarts (going from his right temple to about an inch from his lips) added to the effect. He removed the glamour on other body parts, causing the multitude of scars incurred from beatings and violent rapes to be put on display.

It was quite irksome how he'd managed to disguise himself – by letting the real person underneath to surface.

And so it came about that at nineteen he was the best spy the wizarding world had ever had – more so because none of them knew it. He led dangerous missions into Dark Lord HQ, became CO (Commanding Officer) of the most dangerous and elite squad of Voldemort's own army and saved more lives than he could count.

At twenty-one, Draco fully came into his powers and became the second most powerful sorcerer alive, and a competent necromancer. And still no one suspected him. Most had given up looking. But this worked well for Draco.

In the final battle, he turned his elite squad against the rest of the Death Eaters by calling them traitors and non-believers. That took care of over half the Death Eaters before finally taking care of the 'true' Death Eaters, leaving less than half an army of Death Eaters who hadn't even been trained to fight off the Light.

Dumbledore's squad took care of the rest, just half a day after Dumbledore revealed himself as alive and kickin'.

With Voldemort dead and gone, the wizarding world dedicated themselves to finding the ring of people calling themselves Death's Head, the former top-class Death Eaters. Draco's alias Nix was just one of many who were on that list.

So at twenty-two Draco turned himself into his true-form, the form only a truly powerful sorcerer could become. A true-form is the form of a persons exact opposite, but raised in the same manner the person had been, and having gone through the exact same experiences.

And so Nix became Kacia, an olive skinned girl, tall and slim, with black hair laced with fiery reds and eyes that were startlingly green. She had scars decorating her body, but only in places others couldn't see. Her elegant fingers appeared to have been broken before, and her hair was long enough to sweep her knees and completely hide her face – which had, no doubt, been the reason behind its length.

Kacia got a job in a record store and lived in a done-up room that used to be a living room. She went running and often painted beautiful pictures. She had a website full of these haunting images and lyrics to sad songs she wrote.

At twenty-three Draco was pretty much forgotten, buried too deep in people's minds for them to recognise he was still there. All except one, one soul who still hunted for him, one person who still searched long after it was obvious he would never be found.

And at twenty-five that person gave up looking. And that was when they found Kacia, in a run-down coffee shop in the West End. And they instantly recognized her for who she truly was – another lost soul in the darkness.

Over the next month Kacia grew closer to this person, the mysterious Rosemary. And at twenty-six they admitted to each other who they truly were – the two most powerful sorcerers in the world. Of course it took a great deal of alcohol to get them to admit it, but the point here is that admit it they did.

At twenty-seven they were living together. And one day, after months of whining and nagging and hearing 'write me a story! Write me a stooooooooooooooory!' he eventually gave in and wrote his partner a story. It was his own story, the story that led up to the point of no return and told how he had crossed over until it reached the ending where he had found the person he loved.

It was the story of Draco Malfoy and Harry Potter, the thorns and the bitter rose.


End file.
